When a new engineer starts on a team, something interesting happens. Depending on their level of experience and outspokenness, they will note or perhaps complain about a lot of things. Processes, tools, conventions — details of engineering that differ from their previous roles.
In my experience, this lasts something like a month or two, and then it starts to die off. Think of this initial adjustment phase as the ‘pre-contagion window,’ where a new hire hasn’t yet been infected by the habits — good or bad — of their new team.
Photo by Blake Cheek on Unsplash
This period of fresh perspective is fleeting, and if you’re not careful, it’s easy to squander.
If you’re a manager or colleague to the new hire
Make an effort to be extra patient with these complaints. First of all, they tend to go away. Yes, they may be things you’ve already considered, attempted, or found impractical for various reasons. It might also be the case that you’ve been doing some silly exercise so many times that you don’t see it anymore, even if it costs you minutes every day. If you find yourself dismissing the complaint due to competing priorities, consider whether addressing it might actually save time and effort in the long run. Are you too busy cutting down trees to sharpen the saw? Conversely, and this goes without saying, don’t tolerate toxic behavior from anyone, including new hires.
Consider asking new hires to document any issues they notice during their onboarding period.
If you’re the new hire
Perhaps show this blog post to your colleagues, as a sort of preemptive move to make them more patient with you.
Remember, you’re uniquely positioned to make impactful arguments. There is a lot more potency in suggestions that are backed up with real experience. If you suggest switching to tool X in order to solve problem Y and you can add that you did exactly this at your last job and the tradeoffs were worth it, that is a lot more convincing than someone just suggesting to try it and see what happens.
By recognizing the value of the pre-contagion window, you will continually improve your team’s processes.
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